When We Torture

The most famous journalist you may never have heard of is
Sami al-Hajj,
an Al Jazeera cameraman who is on a hunger strike to protest
abuse during more than six years in a Kafkaesque prison system.

Mr. Hajj’s fortitude has turned him into a household name in the Arab world,
and his story is sowing anger at the authorities holding him without trial.

That’s us. Mr. Hajj is one of our forgotten prisoners in Guantánamo Bay.

If the Bush administration appointed an Under Secretary of State for
Antagonizing the Islamic World, with advice from a Blue Ribbon
Commission for Sullying America’s Image, it couldn’t have done a more
systematic job of discrediting our reputation around the globe.
Instead of using American political capital to push for peace in the
Middle East or Darfur, it is using it to force-feed Mr. Hajj.

President Bush is now moving forward with plans to try six Guantánamo
prisoners before a military tribunal, rather than hold a regular trial.
That will call new attention to abuses in Guantánamo and sow more
anti-Americanism around the world.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
pushed last year to close Guantánamo because of its wretched impact on
American foreign policy. But they lost the argument to Alberto
Gonzales and Dick Cheney. So America spends millions of dollars
bolstering public diplomacy and sponsoring chipper radio and
television broadcasts to the Islamic world — and then undoes it all
with Guantánamo.

Suppose the Iranian government arrested and beat Katie Couric, held
her virtually incommunicado for six years and promised to release her
only if she would spy for Iran. In such circumstances, Iranian
investments in public diplomacy toward the United States wouldn’t get
very far, either.

After Mr. Hajj was arrested in Afghanistan in December 2001, he was
beaten, starved, frozen and subjected to anal searches in public to
humiliate him, his lawyers say. The U.S. government initially seems to
have confused him with another cameraman, and then offered vague
accusations that he had been a financial courier and otherwise
assisted extremist groups.

“There is a significant amount of information, both unclassified and
classified, which supports continued detention of Sami al-Hajj by
U.S. forces,” said Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, adding
that the detainees are humanely treated and “receive exceptional
medical care.”

Military officials did acknowledge that Mr. Hajj was not considered a
potential suicide bomber and probably would have been released long
ago if he had just “come clean” by responding in greater detail to the
allegations and showing remorse.

Mr. Hajj’s lawyers contend that he has already responded in great
detail to every allegation. One indication that the government doesn’t
take its own charges seriously, the lawyers say, is that the
U.S. offered Mr. Hajj a deal: immediate freedom if he would spy on Al
Jazeera. Mr. Hajj refused.

Most Americans, including myself, originally gave President Bush the
benefit of the doubt and assumed that the inmates truly were “the
worst of the worst.” But evidence has grown that many are simply the
unluckiest of the unluckiest.

Some were aid workers who were kidnapped by armed Afghan groups and
sold to the C.I.A. as extremists. One longtime Sudanese aid worker
employed by an international charity, Adel Hamad, was just released by
the U.S. in December after five years in captivity. A U.S. Army major
reviewing his case called it “unconscionable.”

Mr. Hajj began his hunger strike more than a year ago, so twice daily
he is strapped down and a tube is wound up his nose and down his
throat to his stomach. Sometimes a lubricant is used, and sometimes it
isn’t, so his throat and nose have been rubbed raw. Sometimes a tube
still bloody from another hunger striker is used, his lawyers say.

“It’s really a regime to make it as painful and difficult as
possible,” said one of his lawyers, Zachary Katznelson.

Mr. Hajj cannot bend his knees because of abuse he received soon after
his arrest, yet the toilet chair he was prescribed was removed —
making it excruciating for him to use the remaining squat toilet. He is
allowed a Koran, but his glasses were confiscated so he cannot read it.

All this is inhumane, but also boneheaded. Guantánamo itself does far
more damage to American interests than Mr. Hajj could ever do.

To stand against torture and arbitrary detention is not to be
squeamish. It is to be civilized.